


Sasuke's Crater

by Foodmoon



Series: Sakura, Empath [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Kids make scary plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 11:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14519994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foodmoon/pseuds/Foodmoon
Summary: Naruto alters an earth/dent seal just for Sasuke. The results are...impressive.





	Sasuke's Crater

**Author's Note:**

> I got pictures of my parents holding my youngest niece today. So cute~

Kiba stares down into the large smoking crater with wide eyes. There are still bits of flame flickering along the edges and scattered across the crater. The rest of the pack is spaced around the edge, staring at it with similar expressions, even _Naruto_ who came up with it. “That is _awesome!_ Let me try it!”

Naruto turns his head to look at him with a blank expression that means he’s actually thinking hard. “Um. No.”

“Wha-? Hey!” he yelps. “You let Sasuke try it!”

Shikamaru gives him a long suffering look. “Chill, Kiba. He doesn’t want you to blow yourself up.”

“That is correct.” Shino says in his annoyingly calm voice. “Why, you ask? Because you have yet to master any of the intermediate versions of the earth seal. Also, your mastery of the speed jutsu is incomplete as of yet. The likelihood of you misfiring the seal in a lethal way at your current level is rather high.”

“But Sasuke sucks at them too! He hasn’t gotten past the second level one yet!”

“What a drag.” Shikamaru sighs. “Naruto designed it _for_ Sasuke, because he keeps trying to put fire chakra in too.”

“And unlike _you_ , my Sasuke has the speed to get away from the area of destruction, dogbreath.” Ino adds quite unnecessarily. Kiba wishes she’d knock it off with the nickname. Even if Sakura tells him it’s a sign of affection, because she and Ino call each other names every time they squabble.

Akamaru whines and Kiba gives up the fight. “Fine. But you have to make these for me when I can use them. Cuz these are _awesome._ ”

“Sure, Kiba!” Naruto grins at him briefly.

“Th-That was cool, N-Naruto.”

“Hn.”

Naruto blinks, apparently surprised by Sasuke’s agreement, but his reply isn’t what Kiba expects. “Yeah, you activated it perfectly, Sasuke.”

“Hn.”

“Yeah, I can alter the others for you too. I’ll teach you how, too, in case you run out when I’m not around.”

“Hn!”

“Thanks!”

Kiba knows he’s not the only one looking back and forth between them for that crazy conversation. He knows Sasuke _can_ talk quite well, just chooses to grunt when he can get away with noncommittal answers. But he’s _never_ seen anyone take a whole complex conversation from the grunts, or anything beyond ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘dunno’ from them, not even _Ino_ , although she pretends he’s saying whatever she wants him to say and Sasuke’s too whipped to contradict her. Even Shika is staring at Naruto with a sleepy expression that means he’s fascinated.

“Can you make them bigger, Naruto?” Shika asks, instead of asking the _obvious_ question, which is _‘how did you understand him?’_

Naruto actually frowns, which is a weird expression to see on his cheerful, stupid face. “Um. Well, I could, but…”

“Blast area. Got it. What about a timer?”

“Like with explosion tags?” Naruto frowns again. And Kiba remembers that the explosion tags are the one seal that Naruto _hasn’t_ messed around with. Something inside him feels alarm at the oddity of that oversight. “But it needs to hit and you’d need a bigger seal. Um.”

“Ah. Darn. I didn’t think about that. What a drag.” Kiba’s kind of lost, but apparently Shika’s having no issues interpreting Naruto’s explanation.

“Stone.” Chouji contributes. Now Kiba’s totally lost.

“Oh, that’s true!” Ino enthuses. “We’d have to have them specially made, though.”

Kiba’s only consolation is that both Sasuke and Hinata look as lost as he is.

“There would be a high attrition rate, though. We would be unable to recover any stone kunai used in the process, even for training purposes.” Shino adds, which _sort of_ clarifies Chouji’s cryptic comment at least.

“There’s still a limit on how much bigger it can be made with a throwable seal, though.” Sakura says in a thoughtful tone. “And someone might notice a larger one even with a genjutsu on it.”

Naruto winces. “No genjutsu.”

Kiba’s not certain if Naruto’s reaction is just because he’s _terrible_ at genjutsu, or because it means that using one on the seal will blow it up in their faces. He glances back at the still smoking crater. Probably best not to find out.

“U-Um. I don’t quite understand, b-but wouldn’t a bigger one b-be only f-for war or f-for a l-large battle w-with very s-strong enemies?” Hinata ventures.

“Well of course! But the last war was only a few years ago.” Ino points out. “Even though we’re at peace doesn’t mean we’ll stay that way.” Then she makes a face. “Or at least that’s what dad says. There’s no harm in planning ahead, right?”

“I s-see. Um. If th-that’s the case, w-what about drawing it on the ground? I-It would m-make a g-good t-trap.”

Naruto’s eyes light up with unholy glee. “You’re a genius, Hinata! Believe it!”

Kiba shudders. The last time he saw that expression was his first year in Academy when Naruto was still ahead of them a couple years. Every classroom had suffered an explosion of pulverized rice, each dyed in a different color. Which wouldn’t have been _too_ bad, except it was some sort of permanent dye that reacted with water and not only had his hair been streaked blue for weeks after, but half of his clothes had been in the same wash load and they’d been funny colors of teal until he outgrew them. Most of the teachers and even the principal were caught by the prank, so at least his class had company in the ignominy. He’s still not certain how Naruto managed to keep from getting dyed himself.

“O-Oh. Thanks, N-Naruto.” Hinata blushes in a way that makes Kiba want to blindfold her so she can’t look at Naruto. She’s _Kiba’s_ fiancée, but he is glad that the others are finally seeing how smart and awesome she is.

“I see a problem with this, however. Even if we learn how to make it, which most of us would struggle with a great deal, there is the issue of someone seeing it and scuffing the marks before it can activate, which would make the effort pointless.” Shino points out.

 _Wait_. Are they actually discussing drawing a seal _in the dirt_ that can take out _entire teams!?_ Because Kiba’s pretty sure that’s just what he heard. Probably. Maybe. No, Kiba definitely heard the word ‘war’ in there. This is not good. He’s _positive_ the pack is going to get in _so much trouble_ if they do this.

“Can’t we just stick to larger seal paper? I’m pretty sure a seal like that would be too much for us to make, even if someone doesn’t mess it up when I’m done.” Kiba whines, hoping it will stop them.

This doesn’t dim the gleam in Naruto’s eyes _at all_.

“U-Um. I’ve read about transferable s-seals.” Hinata offers. “K-Kiba’s right. It would be too hard to m-make a complex s-seal during a battle. S-So, um, I c-can b-borrow a b-book o-on it from my c-clan’s l-library, i-if y-you w-want, N-Naruto.”

 _That is not what Kiba meant!_ Akamaru whines in sympathy. Hopefully the seal kills them all, or _his mom_ will.

“Naruto, I believe that it would be best to not test a larger scale seal anywhere near Konoha. The fear of such a thing is bound to frighten even the Hokage.”

_Thank Kami for Shino!_

“The old geezer isn’t afraid of anything!” Naruto protests.

Sakura shakes her head. “Naruto, Shino has a point. Even if it doesn’t scare people, the Hokage would have to regard us as potential threats. I really don’t want the Hokage thinking we’re a threat. That would be scary.”

Kiba hadn’t even _considered_ the Hokage’s reaction.

Naruto droops. “Oh. Okay, Sakura.”

“Bothersome.” Shika sighs. “We already know it works. All you need to do is test the transfer and timer, right, Naruto?”

The unholy gleam comes back full force. “That’s right! Thanks, Shika!”

Kiba has clearly lost his mind in calling these people his pack. He doesn’t regret it _at all_.

**Author's Note:**

> No, Kiba dear, they aren't talking about taking out _entire squads_ , they're talking about taking out large chunks of _armies_. Even if not all of them really get that quite yet.  
>  So, actually, Naruto _has_ experimented with explosion tags/fire seals, back when they first learned how in school. It's how he taught himself some of what he's using to alter the other seals now. But they were also much more dangerous, so he ended up stopping at minor alterations after blowing himself up halfway a few times trying to use bigger alterations. He's instinctive with seals, but he has to have something to work off of to begin with to try altering it. It hasn't even occurred to him to try again with the explosion tags now that he knows more. The world is a safer place for this oversight.  
>  Sasuke struggles some with _not_ adding fire chakra to earth based seals. He actually does better with the slime/sorta-water seals than the earth based ones.  
>  Hinata's stutter is more shyness than anything, so that's why it jumps around so much.  
> What Naruto meant was that in order to work properly, the seal has to be in contact with the ground or stone, some earth-heavy element (metal doesn't count), or it will just self destruct with very little effect.  
> Hinata is very intelligent even if she doesn't always logic things through well, and she had a lot of knowledge stuffed into her head by her clan in the years before she was disinherited in favor of her younger sister.  
> Chouji is obviously smarter than he usually comes across. He's _very_ capable with his clan techniques and has a good understanding of how shinobi chain of command works shown early on in canon, plus he hangs around with Shikamaru a lot. He'd just rather eat and not talk, thank you very much.


End file.
